> Other than it being easier to carry around due to its size, why and
> when would you use an XA over an OM?
Well, just as someone said, because it's so very pocketable. Also, if you
like taking street shots, it's less obtrusive. Also, because it's lighter,
so you don't need as much of a tripod -- I've taken decent 5-second
exposures by balancing it on a film canister I had in my pocket to position
it, and a tiny pocket-sized ultrapod is more than sturdy enough if you want
to get fancy. The clamshell design is .
Lens is _sharp_; the summer solstice shot I took was an 8x10 crop of what
would have been probably a 18x12 enlargement, and there's plenty of
sharpness there (and that was me doing the enlarging, even..). It does
vignette a bit in the corners, but not enough to be a big issue unless
you're taking shots of lots of blue sky or something.
It's manual focus, and the rangefinder isn't the brightest, but it's
enough -- aperture priority lets you control the shot enough for most
purposes. You can always do exposure compensation by changing the film
speed, and the +1.5 backlit switch is all you need for a lot of the more
obviously awkward shots.
Other nice things -- it'll shoot up to 10 seconds on auto exposure, so you
can take night shots with it easily; the shutter release is hair-trigger, to
be sure, but that makes it easier to take long exposures. (I've taken a 1/4
second shot hand-held which I'd enlarge to 8x10 no problem. Heck, looking at
a scan onscreen, I'd be still be happy enough with it enlarged to 24x18..
300dpi crop is at http://www.danielmitchell.net/xa_300dpi_crop.jpg if you're
curious.
Now, maybe with flash you lose out -- but then again I hardly ever take
shots with flash, so that's not a big deal for me.
Personally, if I was restricted to one body+lens, it'd be the XA.
-- dan
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